Word: incar
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Sociobiology, a discipline concerned with the study of the genetic basis of social behavior in insects, animals and man, has occasioned such controversy for the past several years. On Friday, December 12, members of the International Committee Against Racism (INCAR)brought their attack to a Harvard classroom, voicing their opinions at Baird Professor of Science E.O. Wilson's Core course, "Evolutionary Biology." The demonstrators chose Wilson's class because he is both the symbolic and the scientific guru of Sociobiology by virtue of his two books Sociobiology: The New Synthesis(1975) and On Human Nature(1978). Besides launching personal attacks...
INTERESTINGLY, INCAR makes none of these four arguments. Theirs is purely political. They claim that Wilson's 1978 interview with the French newspaper Figaro was used by right wing groups to promote racism. Wilson is responsible for this abuse of evolutionary theory and INCAR believes that the possibility of it recurring must be precluded. Sociobiology must be eliminated and Wilson is guilty by association...
...INCAR's attack is different from the four other attacks on sociobiology. It is not just an altercation between rival camps in the academic community. Their demands are not for discussion but for subordination. If "Evolutionary Biology" is removed from the Core Curriculum, it will be a victory for ideology over academic freedom. If political dogma dominates and bullies science as it did in the frightening example of Lysenko, the freedom to know will have no meaning...
...INCAR'S SUPPORT has been dwindling for years and it found little support in the Harvard lecture hall when Wilson offered the group time to present their views to his class at the end of lecture. We should be thankful for the last gasps of this group. Yet the position they take forces consideration of a more pressing question: To what extent is Wilson, or any other scientist, responsible for defending his theories against distortion and misuse...
...attack such as INCAR's, then, demonstrates the need for Wilson to once again clarify some of his hazy positions. He has made himself vulnerable by using certain catchwords in his books which have caused concern. What exactly does he mean when he says the goal of sociobiology is "to predict features of social organization"? Does he really believe that sociobiology can direct the "planned society" he believes is "inevitable" in the 21st century? Wilson must clarify these imprecisions...